Make Home Improvement Jobs Easy With These Tips

Your home needs repairing; however, you simply are not sure where to start. Does this sound like you? You are not alone. Hopefully, the following article can help you get your home up to date.

Before summer starts and outdoor barbecues begin, take a good look at your deck. Be on the lookout for holes or rotten wood, and quickly fix any areas that are problematic. This will help you get prepared for summer.

Are you having trouble growing grass in certain areas of your yard? If this is the case, purchase a bag of grass seed and try to restore your lawn to its original beauty. A lawn that looks even can truly improve your yard. Revitalize your lawn today.

If you want to do a project yourself, first write out everything you will have to accomplish. Ask someone who knows what they are doing to check it and make sure you didn?t forget anything. If you overlook an important step during the planning phase, it can result in work that is subpar or a renovation that is more expensive than what you budgeted for.

Take a sponge to your drywall! A sponge works as an effective tool to replace sanding. It will take some practice to learn listings by remax here -sutton realty north vancouver this new technique, but you?ll get it. Sponging holds an advantage over sanding ? no dust.

If you?re embarking on a huge kitchen renovation, set up a makeshift kitchen you can use while yours is unavailable. Your kitchen might not be useable for a couple of weeks so have a microwave and a refrigerator elsewhere in the house so you can store food and make easy meals.

If you want a quick way to add value to your home, considering refinishing your wood floors. While a large project, refinishing isn?t hard. If you don?t know how to do this, you can take classes at a hardware store. In addition, you can rent all the equipment you need at this store. This project will save you a lot of money in the long run.

Don?t select a busy upholstery pattern when you?re buying new furniture. Bold geometrics, loud florals and colorful patterns will limit your decorating choices. Purchase furniture in solid colors like black, brown, blue or green, and use accessories to highlight the furniture. Throw pillows and blankets will allow you to add any patterns or design you choose but won?t let the patterns take over your room.

Home improvement is a great way to make your ideas come to life. Consult a professional designer if you are unsure about doing a home improvement project. They know about overall layout, design and color scheme, and they can give you one on one assistance with your project.

In conclusion, anyone can do home improvements. If you don?t have any experience, all you have to do is learn the information. This article was intended to provide you a good starting knowledge in the realm of home improvement. Keep in mind, you can complete the project yourself if you follow this advice.

Source: http://canadianland.biz/329-make-home-improvement-jobs-easy-with-these-tips

Marcus Lattimore

A Small-Business Office Is Accused of Advocating for Big Business ...

The Agenda

How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.

For decades, the Office of Advocacy, a bureau within the Small Business Administration, has worked behind the scenes to soften the impact of federal regulations on small companies. It is charged with, among other responsibilities, representing ?the views and interests of small businesses before other federal agencies.? To learn how regulatory policies might affect small businesses, the office regularly convenes round-table discussions with its constituents.

But before one such forum on labor safety in January 2011, an Office of Advocacy official invited a lobbyist for General Electric to participate, according to e-mails obtained by an organization known as the Center for Effective Government. ?You are welcome to attend as long as you maintain a small business perspective!? the official wrote, adding the well-known emoticon to suggest winking irony. Then he wrote, ?Seriously, we would very much appreciate your input and expertise!?

To some critics, the participation of G.E., one of the biggest corporations in America, in a meeting ostensibly about small-business concerns is one example of a larger concern about the Office of Advocacy. These critics suggest that ? just as other divisions of the S.B.A. have come in for criticism about looking the other way as big companies get government contracts or increased access to government-guaranteed loans ? the office has provided big businesses with a back door into the government?s rule-making deliberations.

With a staff of 47 and a budget of $9 million ? and its own appropriation, separate from the rest of the S.B.A. ? the office is tasked with making sure that other agencies consider the impact of their regulations on small businesses under procedures set by federal laws, particularly the Regulatory Flexibility Act, and prods those agencies to find alternatives to minimize that impact.

Not surprisingly, that kind of prodding has its fans. ?The Office of Advocacy continues to be the only voice within the federal government actively advocating to alleviate that burden,? Susan Eckerly, senior vice president for public policy at the National Federation of Independent Business, said in a statement. The N.F.I.B. is a conservative trade association that generally takes little interest in the activities of the S.B.A., but it came to the Office of Advocacy?s defense recently after two organizations separately published critical reports on the office. ?In our many years of working with the Office of Advocacy,??Ms. Eckerly said, ?we have found them to take great pains to ensure they are representing the views of small businesses that otherwise would have no voice in the rule-making process.?

The office claims to have saved small businesses more than $88 billion in just the first-year costs of complying with new regulations since 2002. For example, in 2011 the Justice Department adopted a proposal from the office to allow companies to avoid having to comply with new standards under the Americans With Disabilities Act ? a change the office has claimed saved small businesses $8.3 billion. In this example and others, however, it is impossible to know whether the impetus for the rule change came from the Office of Advocacy or elsewhere.

Some critics of the Office of Advocacy maintain it goes beyond its mandate and exhibits a general hostility toward regulation. They blame the office and the Regulatory Flexibility Act for delaying regulations by months, or even years, and for weakening the final policies. And in their reports, the Center for Effective Government and the Center for Progressive Reform claim the office works too closely with large corporations and the trade associations that represent them.

For example, in 2010 and 2011 the Office of Advocacy criticized efforts at other agencies to lay the groundwork for regulating three hazardous chemicals, citing the concerns of small businesses. But based on e-mails and other documents obtained from the office through Freedom of Information Act requests, the Center for Effective Government concluded that the office entered into these three scientific debates at the behest of trade groups, principally the American Chemistry Council, and relied on them extensively ? if not exclusively ? to frame its line of attack.

?No small businesses objected to the scientific assessments or asked the Office of Advocacy to intervene in the cancer assessments,? Randy Rabinowitz, the center?s director of regulatory policy, wrote in the report. ?The Office of Advocacy made no effort to determine whether the positions it took represented small-business views and interests.?

Moreover, according to the Center for Progressive Reform report, the S.B.A. office ?commonly seeks to weaken the requirements of proposed rules for all affected entities? instead of proposing rule changes narrowly tailored to small companies. Indeed, in at least four of the six rules established in 2012 in which the Office of Advocacy claims cost savings for small businesses, the office pushed changes that would benefit all businesses, not just small ones. In another case, the office proposed increasing the small-business size standards set by the S.B.A. to accommodate larger businesses.

Brad Howard, a spokesman for the Office of Advocacy, said in an e-mail that ?our sole focus and Congressional mandate is and always has been on minimizing the burden on small businesses.? But, he said, ?occasionally, these alternatives benefit everyone.? And the office?s work with trade groups ?is only part of the picture,? adding that staff members of the office also talk directly with small companies.

Trade associations are essential to the Office of Advocacy?s efforts to understand how regulations might affect small companies, said Thomas M. Sullivan, a Washington lawyer who served as chief counsel for the office during the Bush administration. ?Do you know how hard it is to find an independent trucker and get them to read an 800-page Federal Register proposal? They just don?t have time!? he said.

Of course, the interests of small and large companies may coincide, even when small companies are granted preferential treatment. A handful of large companies make the chemical styrene, and thousands of small companies use it to manufacture other products. All could face consequences if the Health and Human Services Department labels it a cancer risk. The fact that no small businesses complained to the office about the assessment for styrene, or submitted comments while the Health and Human Services Department was preparing its report, could indicate lack of interest or, as Mr. Sullivan, the former chief counsel, suggested, lack of time or awareness.

Ms. Rabinowitz, of the Center for Effective Government, sees it differently. The Office of Advocacy was set up to give voice to businesses that otherwise would not have one. ?But in the cases we?ve looked at, and the cases C.P.R. has looked at, apparently, Advocacy is not voicing any unique small-business perspective,? she said. ?The American Chemistry Council is adequately, legitimately and loudly representing the interests of the chemical companies ? they?re a big player in these debates.

?As a matter of policy, why is the taxpayer subsidizing an office of the federal government to amplify their complaints??

Source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/a-small-business-office-is-accused-of-advocating-for-big-business/

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Sistine chimney installed as conclave nears

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican sought Saturday to quash speculation that divisions among cardinals could drag out the conclave to elect the new pope, while preparations for the vote plowed ahead with firefighters installing the Sistine Chapel chimney that will tell the world when a decision has been reached.

But the specter of an inconclusive first few rounds of secret balloting remained high, with no clear front-runner heading into Tuesday's papal election and a long list of cardinals still angling to discuss the church's problems ahead of the vote.

"You don't have your mind absolutely made up" going into the conclave, U.S. Cardinal Justin Rigali, who participated in the 2005 conclave that elected Benedict XVI, told The Associated Press this week. "You have your impressions."

The Vatican spokesman, however, took pains to stress the "vast," near-unanimous decision by the 115 cardinal electors to set Tuesday as the conclave start date and noted that no conclave over the past century has dragged on for more than five days.

"I think it's a process that can be carried out in a few days without much difficulty," spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters.

While Tuesday's initial voting will likely see a broad number of candidates nominated, subsequent rounds will quickly whittle down the field to those candidates who are likely to obtain the two-thirds, or 77 votes necessary for victory, he said.

"This process of identifying the candidates who can receive the consensus and on whom cardinals can converge is a process that can move with notable speed," Lombardi said.

The Vatican was certainly going full-throttle Saturday with preparations: Inside the frescoed Sistine Chapel, workmen staple-gunned the brown felt carpeting to the false floor that has been constructed to even out the stairs and cover the jamming equipment that has been installed to prevent cellphone or eavesdropping devices from working.

The interference was working: cell phones had no reception in the chapel. Reporters allowed to visit the chapel used their phones instead to pose for photos in front of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," the huge fresco behind the altar depicting a muscular Jesus surrounded by naked masses ascending to heaven and falling to hell.

Off in the rear left-hand corner sat the stove, a century-old cast iron oven where the voting ballot papers are burned, sending up puffs of smoke to tell the world if a pope has been elected (white smoke) or not (black).

After years of confusion, the Vatican in 2005 installed an auxiliary stove where fumigating cases are lit. The smoke from those cases joins the burned ballot smoke in a single copper pipe that snakes up the Sistine's frescoed walls, out the window and up on the roof where firemen on Saturday fitted the chimney top.

Elsewhere in the Apostolic Palace, officials on Saturday took measures to definitively end Benedict XVI's pontificate, destroying his fisherman's ring and the personal seals and stamps he used for official papers.

The act ? coupled with Benedict's public resignation and pledge of obedience to the future pope ? is designed to signal the end of his papacy so there is no doubt that a new pope is in charge. These steps were made necessary given Benedict's decision to resign rather than stay on the job until death.

The developments all point toward the momentous event soon to confront the Catholic Church: Tuesday's start of the conclave to elect a new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics who must try to solve the numerous problems facing the church.

For the sixth day, cardinals met behind closed doors Saturday, and once again discussed the work of the Holy See's offices "and how to improve it," according to Lombardi.

The Holy See's internal governance has been a constant theme in these days of discussion, an indication that the revelations of corruption, political infighting and turf battles exposed by the leaks of papal documents last year are casting a very big shadow over this conclave.

The attention the issue has received suggests the cardinals will want a good manager in a pope ? or at least a pope who would appoint a good manager as his secretary of state, the key administration job in the Vatican.

Another round of secret consultations is scheduled for Monday, the last day before the conclave.

Lombardi, meanwhile, confirmed that the bells of St. Peter's Basilica would ring once a pope has been elected, though he acknowledged that there will always be some uncertainty in the whole endeavor. In 2005, it wasn't clear if the smoke coming out of the chimney was black or white and whether or not the bells were ringing for a pope or simply because the clock had struck noon.

"This is the beauty of these events, that is to say, having a minimum of suspense," Lombardi said. "A few minutes (of uncertainty) are more interesting than if everything happened like a Swiss watch."

___

AP Religion reporter Rachel Zoll contributed.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sistine-chimney-installed-conclave-nears-135418278.html

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Police strikes in Egypt accelerate, adding turmoil

Egyptians mourn during the funeral for Abd Alhaleem Mohanna, 23, who was killed on March 5, 2013 during clashes with riot police, in Port Said, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. Egypt's police forces have withdrawn from the streets of this restive city on the Suez Canal, handing over security to the military after nearly a week of deadly clashes. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Egyptians mourn during the funeral for Abd Alhaleem Mohanna, 23, who was killed on March 5, 2013 during clashes with riot police, in Port Said, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. Egypt's police forces have withdrawn from the streets of this restive city on the Suez Canal, handing over security to the military after nearly a week of deadly clashes. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Egyptian police officers hold a protest demanding the resignation of the interior minister, in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. After weeks of battling with angry young protesters, Egypt's police forces have had enough. Police units around the country have launched mutinies, strikes and protests, accusing the Islamist president of using them to fight his opponents. Angry riot police locked their commander in a camp for hours. Policemen in cities around the country have shut down their stations. The wave of police discontent adds a new layer to the breakdown of politics, order and institutions in crisis-torn Egypt. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian army soldier helps another soldier with a mask as troops take control of the state security building after several days of clashes between protesters and riot police in Port Said, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. With the country in chaos from weeks of protests against the Islamist president, the police have now joined the fray, launching their own protests. Some security forces in Port Said have refused to leave their barracks to move against protesters in the street amid clashes raging for days. Others have refused orders to deploy to Port Said from elsewhere to help in the fight. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Women mourn for their relative, Ahmed Abdul Khalim, 24, who was killed with a bullet to his head during recent clashes with Egyptian security forces in Port Said, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. Egypt's police forces have withdrawn from the streets of this restive city on the Suez Canal, handing over security to the military after nearly a week of deadly clashes.(AP Photo/Ariana Drehsler)

Egyptian protesters chant angry slogans during a demonstration after the noon prayer in Port Said, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. With the country in chaos from weeks of protests against the Islamist president, the police have now joined the fray, launching their own protests. Some security forces in Port Said have refused to leave their barracks to move against protesters in the street amid clashes raging for days. Others have refused orders to deploy to Port Said from elsewhere to help in the fight. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

CAIRO (AP) ? Strikes by Egyptian security forces spread swiftly around the country Friday, as police walked off the job or took to the streets, angry at being blamed for crackdowns on protests against the Islamist president and accusing his Muslim Brotherhood of trying to control them.

The wave of police discontent adds a new layer to Egypt's turmoil and political breakdown. In a sign of the disarray, a powerful hard-line Islamist group said its members would now take over policing a southern province because most security forces in the province were on strike.

The top security official in Assiut province, Gen. Aboul-Kassem Deif, said the announcement by Gamaa Islamiya ? a group that in the 1990s waged an armed Islamic militant uprising but in the past two years entered politics ? was illegal. But he seemed to acknowledge he could not stop it.

"I don't know what to do," he told The Associated Press.

Strikes by policemen and riot police were reported in at least 10 of Egypt's 29 provinces, including at several stations in the capital, Cairo. Even as some police went on strike, others were clashing with protesters in Cairo, the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla el-Kubra. Dozens injured in the fighting, according to security officials and witnesses.

In Cairo, police demonstrated in front of the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the security forces, and demanded the resignation of the minister, their boss.

In Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city, police closed their stations and plastered posters on the door reading, "We don't want politics" and ? in an attempt to show unity with the public ? "Police and the people are one hand."

The police discontent comes after relentless protests and unrest around the country since late January ? which in turn followed an earlier wave of protests in November and December. In past weeks, protesters have taken to the streets largely in anger against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, which the opposition accuses of trying to dominate power in the country. But other factors have fueled unrest, including a declining economy and fuel shortages.

Near daily, the demonstrations have turned into clashes with police in multiple cities, resulting in the killing of around 70 protesters. Each death has increased public anger against the security forces, fueled further by reports of torture of some activists by security agents. The force is already widely hated because of its legacy of abuses and brutality under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Now that has sparked a backlash by many of the lower-ranking members of the security forces. Protesting police accuse Morsi of using them to crack down on his opponents and demand the resignation of the current, Morsi-appointed interior minister, who they accuse of engineering efforts to bring Islamist sympathizers into the ministry.

Police officers in the southern city of Sohag marched in front of one station, holding signs reading, "No to the Brotherhoodization of the ministry."

Police in charge of protecting the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which makes up the backbone of Morsi's rule, have gone on strike, as have others tasked with escorting Morsi's motorcades.

Some members of the Central Security forces ? the riot police force that is at the forefront of cracking down on protesters ? have come to near munity.

On Thursday, protesting riot police trapped the Central Security's top commander for several hours inside their camp at the city of Port Said, refusing to deploy in the city against protesters.

On Friday, the Interior Ministry announced that the commander, Gen. Maged Nouh, had been removed from his post and replaced by his deputy, Ashraf Abdullah. Abdullah, who previously commanded Central Security in Cairo, reportedly instructed his forces not to clash with protesters on Dec. 3, during the first wave of mass protests outside Morsi's presidential palace.

It is not clear whether the new appointment would assuage anger of riot police.

Port Said, located at the Mediterranean end of the Suez Canal, has been the center of the heaviest violence during the unrest. A police crackdown on protests there in late January left 40 dead. Protesters have been clashing with police there the past week in fighting that has killed at least eight people, including three policemen.

On Friday, the military took over security in the city as police withdrew from the street and riot police stayed in their barracks. The handover was an attempt to bring calm since protesters largely trust the army more than police. Protesters climbed at the top of tanks in celebration, took down an Interior Ministry flag from a police building and vowed to ally with the military in managing the city.

But many fear a new wave of violence on Saturday when a court issues new verdicts and sentences in a contentious trial over a deadly soccer riot in Port Said in February 2012. A first set of verdicts on Jan. 28 ? in which 21 Port Said residents were sentenced to death over the riot ? sparked the city's initial uprising because its population sees the trial as unjust and politicized.

On Saturday, the court is scheduled to issue verdicts on around 50 more defendants, mostly Port Said residents but also including nine police officers. If the police personnel are convicted or handed heavy sentences, it will likely further fuel resentment among the security forces.

Hundreds marched through Port Said on Friday in a funeral procession for one of two protesters shot to death in fighting with police the night before, one of whom had been shot in the head. In Cairo on Friday, protesters and police fought on a main thoroughfare along the Nile River for the fifth straight day.

The mainly liberal and secular opposition says the turmoil shows that Morsi and his Islamist allies are not qualified to rule. They have accused Morsi and his Brotherhood of imposing their control and failing to seek consensus with other groups.

Morsi's supporters, in turn, say the opposition is trying to use street violence to overturn their election victories. In June, Morsi became the country's first freely elected president, and Islamists dominate parliament after elections last year.

Over the past days, some Islamists have spoken of the police mutiny as a "soft coup" against the president, warning of an "Islamic revolution" if Morsi is toppled.

The announcement by the Gamaa Islamiya in the southern province of Assiut raised the possibility of Islamist groups moving in to fill the void left by striking police. Members of the group beat up a number of youth opposition in front of the governor's office before police arrested three of the opposition, officials said.

The group declared its offices the "security headquarters" for the province and said it was organizing volunteer members to carry out police duties like patrols. Islamists in nearby provinces have spoken of doing the same.

The Gamaa was one of two main militant groups that waged a bloody campaign of violence in southern Egypt aiming to overthrow the state in the 1990s. It since forswore violence and entered politics after Mubarak's fall in 2011, but it maintains a hard-line Islamist ideology.

The Assiut security chief, Deif, accused the Gamaa of exploiting the situation to expand its influence before parliamentary elections expected in coming months.

"It could enflame the situation," Deif said, "and people will not accept it."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-08-Egypt/id-8652507366b1467dbae348600d016c55

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Radar reveals traces of Martian mega-flood

NASA / MOLA / Smithsonian

Mars' 600-mile Marte Vallis channel system is filled with young lavas that obscure the source of the channels. This map shows Marte Vallis against the background of an elevation map of the planet, based on readings from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

A 3-D reconstruction of structures beneath the surface of Mars shows the 600-mile-wide footprint of a mega-flood that carved deep channels into the planet within the past 500 million years, scientists say.

Since that time, the evidence of the flood in a region known as Marte Vallis has been covered over by fresher lava flows. But a team of researchers pieced together the evidence by analyzing readings from a ground-penetrating radar instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The analysis was laid out Thursday on the journal Science's website.

---

"Our findings show that the scale of erosion was previously underestimated, and that channel depth was at least twice that of previous approximations," lead author Gareth Morgan, a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, said in a news release. "The source of the floodwaters suggests?they originated from a deep groundwater reservoir and may have been released by local tectonic or volcanic activity. This work demonstrates the importance of orbital sounding radar in understanding how water has shaped the surface of Mars."

Over the past decade and a half, missions to Mars have provided ample evidence that the planet was once warmer and wetter than it is today. However, scientists say the most recent outflows of water came in brief, catastrophic bursts rather than as steady streams. The newly published research is consistent with that view.

Morgan and his colleagues used the orbiter's Italian-built Shallow Radar sounder, or SHARAD, to put Mars' subsurface geology through the radar equivalent of a CT scan. They found that the boundaries between the layers of fresher lava and the underlying rock traced a network of buried channels. The patterns and depths of those channels were characteristic of the canyons that would be cut by flowing water. Lots of flowing water.

The depth of the main channel was estimated at 226 to 371 feet (69 to 113 meters). "This is comparable with the depth of incision of the largest known megaflood on Earth, the Missoula floods, responsible for carving the Channeled Scabland of the northwestern United States," the researchers wrote.?

The Missoula floods occurred 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, due to a post-Ice Age warming trend, and discharged dammed-up water at a rate ranging up to 2.6 billion gallons per second. Morgan and his colleagues traced the Martian mega-flood to a radically different type of source: a fracture system in Mars' Cerberus Fossae region that apparently opened up to release water from miles beneath the Red Planet's surface. "It was a big crack in the ground, basically," Morgan told NBC News.

Smithsonian / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sapienza Univ. of Rome / MOLA / USGS

A 3-D visualization shows the buried Marte Vallis channels. Marte Vallis consists of multiple perched channels formed around streamlined islands. These channels feed a deeper and wider main channel. The surface has been elevated and scaled by a factor of 1/100 for clarity. The area covered by this visualization is outlined by dotted lines in the global map above.

NASA / Goddard / Anna Brunner

NASA interns look down on Frenchman Springs Coulee in Washington state's Channeled Scablands. Researchers say the Martian mega-flood cut channels similar to those created thousands of years ago in the Channeled Scablands.

SHARAD's depth readings suggest that the channels had to have been cut somewhere between 10 million and 500 million years ago. Morgan said that makes the mega-flood channels "much younger" than the geological features being studied by NASA's Curiosity rover in a different region of Mars. Curiosity's science team wants to find out whether Mars had liquid water and the other conditions conducive for life 3 billion years to 4 billion years ago. On the surface, at least, those conditions were long gone by the time the Cerberus Fossae mega-flood washed over Marte Vallis.

More about Mars:

---

In addition to Morgan, the authors of "3D Reconstruction of the Source and Scale of Buried Young Flood Channels on Mars" include Bruce A. Campbell, Lynn M. Carter, Jeffrey J. Plaut and Roger J. Phillips.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/07/17225462-radar-reveals-traces-of-monstrous-martian-flood-millions-of-years-ago?lite

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Kazakhstan US sign new energy plan

Asia Times Friday 8th March, 2013

By Richard Weitz The latest meeting of the Kazakhstani-US Energy Partnership Commission took place in Washington on October 15-16, 2012. The two delegation heads, Kazakhstan's Minister of Oil and Gas Sauat Mynbayev and the US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, signed a Joint Action Plan for 2012 - 2013 that promotes cooperation in four broad categories: nuclear security and nuclear power, hydrocarbon resources, renewable energy and energy efficiency, and electric power. With respect to nuclear energy, the two governments will collaborate to strengthen international safegua...

Read more

Source: http://www.centralasiatimes.com/index.php/sid/213068823/scat/929bcf2071e81801

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Your chances of dying by 2023? Test offers a clue

CHICAGO (AP) ? Want to know your chances of dying in the next 10 years? Here are some bad signs: getting winded walking several blocks, smoking, and having trouble pushing a chair across the room.

That's according to a "mortality index" developed by San Francisco researchers for people older than 50.

The test scores may satisfy people's morbid curiosity, but the researchers say their 12-item index is mostly for use by doctors. It can help them decide whether costly health screenings or medical procedures are worth the risk for patients unlikely to live 10 more years.

It's best to take the test with a doctor, who can discuss what the score means in the context of patients' own medical history, the study authors say.

The index "wasn't meant as guidance about how to alter your lifestyle," said lead author Dr. Marisa Cruz of the University of California, San Francisco.

Instead, doctors can use the results to help patients understand the pros and cons of such things as rigorous diabetes treatment, colon cancer screening and tests for cervical cancer. Those may not be safe or appropriate for very sick, old people likely to die before cancer ever develops.

The 12 items on the index are assigned points; fewer total points means better odds.

? Men automatically get 2 points. In addition to that, men and women ages 60 to 64 get 1 point; ages 70 to 74 get 3 points; and 85 or over get 7 points.

? Two points each: a current or previous cancer diagnosis, excluding minor skin cancers; lung disease limiting activity or requiring oxygen; heart failure; smoking; difficulty bathing; difficulty managing money because of health or memory problem; difficulty walking several blocks.

? One point each: diabetes or high blood sugar; difficulty pushing large objects, such as a heavy chair; being thin or normal weight.

The highest, or worst, score is a 26, with a 95 percent chance of dying within 10 years. To get that, you'd have to be a man at least 85 years old with all the above conditions.

For a score of zero, which means a 3 percent chance of dying within 10 years, you'd have to be a woman younger than 60 without any of those infirmities ? but at least slightly overweight.

It's hardly surprising that a sick, older person would have a much higher chance of dying than someone younger and more vigorous, and it's well known that women generally live longer than men. But why would being overweight be less risky than being of normal weight or slim?

One possible reason is that thinness in older age could be a sign of illness, Cruz said.

Other factors could also play a role, so the index should be seen as providing clues but not the gospel truth, the research suggests.

The findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Grants from the National Institute on Aging and the American Federation for Aging Research helped pay for the study.

The researchers created the index by analyzing data on almost 20,000 Americans over 50 who took part in a national health survey in 1998. They tracked the participants for 10 years. Nearly 6,000 participants died during that time.

They previously used the test to predict the risk of dying within four years. They said their new effort shows the same index can be used to predict 10-year mortality.

Dr. Stephan Fihn, a University of Washington professor of medicine and health quality measurement specialist with Veterans Affairs health services in Seattle, said the index seems valid and "methodologically sound."

But he said it probably would be most accurate for the oldest patients, who don't need a scientific crystal ball to figure out their days are numbered.

___

Online:

Mortality test: bit.ly/QeOX23 (p. 807)

JAMA: http://www.jama.am-assn.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-03-05-Aging%20America-Predicting%20Death/id-d7ff10d010d748cb8d71f940d74d6900

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Grab Parallels Desktop for $30 Off, Plus 9 Other Mac Apps for Free

OS X: This latest software bundle for Mac users gives you $30 off of virtualization software Parallels 8 plus nine additional Mac apps. Together, they retail for $618, but MacUpdate is offering them for $49.99 (over 90% off).

Parallels 8, our favorite tool for running Windows on a Mac is typically $79.99, so this deal is worth it alone for that.

In addition to the $30 savings on Parallels, you also get comprehensive OCR software Prizmo, previously mentioned system monitoring tool iStat Menus, and also previously highlighted DiskAid...plus six other apps.

See the deals site for the full list of apps and to pick it up in the next two weeks.

MacUpdate March 2013 Bundle | MacUpdate via 9to5Mac

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/jd5C4dyTbFw/grab-parallels-desktop-and-9-other-mac-apps-for-50-over-90-off

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Dow hits fresh record as private hiring picks up

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed by midday trade on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq trading slightly lower and the Dow trimming earlier gains, weighed down by energy and telecom shares.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 27.96 points, or 0.20 percent, at 14,281.73. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.73 of a point, or 0.05 percent, at 1,540.52. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 0.68 of a point, or 0.02 percent, at 3,223.45.

Earlier, the Dow set another intraday record high at 14,320.65.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dow-surges-closing-high-economy-feds-help-032459668--sector.html

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conclusion on auto-responder for online marketing - INFORMATION ...

Internet has come to stay, e-commerce has come to stay as well and Auto-responder must surely exist. There is money in the list they say and this remains true. You entice a customer with gifts or service in order for them to give you their email address and you in turn forward to them about your goods on the internet thereby drawing their attention to your product and how reliable you are.? For an effective online supermarket, an auto-responder is their soul mate. It will be hectic on you banging email to thousands of your customers that comes to your site in search of one thing or the other. Therefore with this idea of auto-responder, you can comfortably set it up within an hour and it will be there doing your work for you. ?

Be careful not to use your auto-responder improperly. Having one auto-responder respond to another auto-responder, for example, can be chaotic and could cause server overload. This situation occurs when you sign up for something using your auto-responder address. After the sign up, your message is sent to another person?s auto-responder, which responds to your auto-responder ? and this continues until it is manually stopped. Second, be aware that certain words or phrases used in your messages will automatically activate spam filters. When used responsibly, then, auto-responders can prove to be important automated tools for helping the success of your online business.

REFERENCES

1.???????? UKAI C.O AND UGAH J.O (2009). A MODERN APPROACH TO COMPUTER APPLICATIONS. ABAKALIKI: ST. THERESA?S CATHOLIC CHURCH.

2.???????? NAGY A. (2005). THE IMPACT OF E-LEARNING

3.???????? DOWNES, S (2005) E-LEARNING 2.0 Online at http://www.downes.ca/post/31741

4.???????? www.homebusinesslink.com/the-importance-of-auto-responder

5.???????? MBAM B.C.E. (2002). INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM. ABAKALIKI: GREEN LIGHT COMPUTERS.

6.???????? murray,M.(2006). Auto-responder Basic. Email Marketing, 50-51

8.???????? Chen, L. (2000). Enticing Online Consumers: A Technology Acceptance

Perspective Research- in-Progress. ACM Proceedings, SIGCPR

Source: http://martinslibrary.blogspot.com/2013/03/conclusion-on-auto-responder-for-online.html

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Ferris State University Student Upgraded to Serious Condition

BIG RAPIDS, Mich. ? The Ferris State University student who was found lying unconscious in the snow last month has been upgraded to serious condition.

Nicholas Suttles was taken to Spectrum Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids on Feb. 15 for hypothermia and an irregular heartbeat. ?

The investigation uncovered that Suttles may have been spotted drinking at a party near the 300 block of Morrison. Officials believe he tried to walk home at about 12:30 a.m. to his on-campus housing when he fell into the ditch.

Source: http://fox17online.com/2013/03/05/ferris-state-university-student-upgraded-to-serious-condition/

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Best Phone Service For Entrepreneurs | TechSling Weblog

Entrepreneurs must understand their businesses? unique communications needs in order to find the best possible phone service options. While much of the ins and outs of business can be handled over the Internet these days, the truth of the matter is that some matters must be conducted over the phone. Employees, partners and customers are all important components of the business relationship, and entrepreneurs who know how to communicate effectively with them will get ahead of the pack.

From voicemail to web conferencing, toll-free phone numbers to call following and conference calling to voice-to-text transcription, there are lots of options when it comes to phone service for entrepreneurs. The following primer will highlight some of the phone service providers, as well as the various features they offer, that entrepreneurs might want to consider if they haven?t done so already.

Phone.com insists that its service offers the easiest means of obtaining flexible, low-cost virtual office phone service that entrepreneurs can use to stay connected with their teams. The service offers a toll-free number, option to add unlimited calling users where users get a separate username and password to manage their settings, a business number that entrepreneurs can use to connect their team, custom greeting, advanced call routing, option to connect with their mobile phones, and more.

The Vonage Small Business Premium Unlimited option offers, among other things, unlimited local and long distance in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico; calls to landlines in France, Spain, Italy, the UK and Ireland; extensions app for Android and iPhone smartphones that enable users to make calls via the Vonage network over Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G; dedicated fax line with 500 minutes of outgoing fax service and unlimited incoming faxes; voicemail; caller ID; anonymous call block; and three-way calling.

Google Voice offers entrepreneurs a local phone number that can be used to call as many as half a dozen other phones at the same time. The service offers international call options at competitive rates, voice-to-text transcription, call recording, voicemails and more. Its ability to unify communications through one phone number might be its best selling point.

Skype is arguably the best-known option when it comes to Voice over Internet Protocol providers. Entrepreneurs can save money by calling and conferencing with other Skype at no cost to reduce costs associated with calling via mobiles and landlines. They can also share information and ideas with teammates using instant messaging, group video and file sharing; use Skype To Go in order to call customers and colleagues from their mobile or landline; use call forwarding to receive Skype calls when offline; access in excess of 1 million wireless hotspots globally via Skype WiFi; and more.

Grasshopper, which bills itself as the entrepreneur?s phone system, allows entrepreneurs to pick a number for their businesses; record a custom main greeting; add workers and departments as required; and receive calls, voicemails and faxes from anywhere. The company offers unlimited extensions, on hold music, unlimited call handling, conference calling, call forwarding, call screening and more. Entrepreneurs can also get voicemails and faxes via email.

Line2 Pro helps entrepreneurs to equip their company with an auto attendant that guides callers through the various options at their disposal to get the information they need. Workers can also access their business phone line anywhere via any device. Call history, voicemail and texts will be kept in synch across all devices. Entrepreneurs will be able to cut costs by calling and texting over Wi-Fi, which means no more troubling roaming charges.

Freedom800 offers entrepreneurs a toll-free number for their companies, the ability to customize the service to fit their businesses; multiple extensions for automated call routing; the ability to send voicemails and faxes to email; and the option to combine their existing mobile and home/office phones with Freedom800?s cloud-based phone service.

Phone service for entrepreneurs is a serious matter since the ability to communicate with workers, partners and customers is obviously paramount to success in the business world. There are lots of choices available whether in terms of business phone service providers or in terms of features. Entrepreneurs need to carefully assess their options and decide what best fits their particular corporate goals and objectives.

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Source: http://www.techsling.com/2013/03/best-phone-service-for-entrepreneurs/

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Finger-Shaped Tacks: Handy in the Creepiest Way Possible

Are you lonely? Do you have piles of miscellaneous papers scattered haphazardly around your home? Are you Russel Crowe in A Beautiful Mind? If any of the above apply to you, these thumb tacks taken literally may be exactly what you're looking for. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/OIQTeDxRe38/finger+shaped-tacks-handy-in-the-creepiest-way-possible

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Fabolous And Pusha T Toast Newcomer Troy Ave

Rapper drops Troy Ave Presents: BSB mixtape after Fab and Pusha share their support with Mixtape Daily.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Nadeska Alexis

Troy Ave
Photo: Johnny Nunez/ WireImage

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1703003/pusha-t-fabolous-troy-ave-od-exclusive.jhtml

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Facebook Messenger on Android loaded with free voice calls for Canadian users

Android's flavor of Facebook Messenger has just been updated with VoIP functionality for the social network's Canadian users. There's no word when Android faithful in the US will snag the functionality, but Cancuks can at least ring their American counterparts who wield the iOS app. Version 2.3 of the mobile messenger also makes group conversations accessible in the sidebar, allows them to be named from the top of a talk and makes them searchable by name and friends. Hit the neighboring source link to grab the revamped software.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Facebook

Comments

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Facebook Messenger (Google Play)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/04/facebook-messenger-android-voip-canada/

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Kaiapoi Labourers Lose Jobs To Prisoners | Stuff.co.nz

DAVID HALLETT/Fairfax NZ

Hare Solomon

A Kaiapoi business fired five of its labourers two days after employing 11 convicts - and then made the workers train the inmates who were to replace them, current and former staff say.

Kaiapoi man Hare Solomon said Kiwi Pallets Kaiapoi told him and four workmates they would be laid off in late January "due to lack of work and other factors" just days after the company had hired 11 inmates from Christchurch's Rolleston Prison under the Release to Work scheme.

He was then made to train the convicts during the two-week notice period.

He did not ask his employer why 11 staff were being trained if there was not enough work.

"I was just frustrated and didn't want to lose it, so I just did it [trained them]."

He did not know any reason why the business wanted to get rid of him and his workmates.

"I feel this could happen to other employees at other places of work and would not like to see this happen to anyone, it is not a good feeling to lose a job you like.

"What is the point of giving inmates work if it is being taken away from people already employed? Surely it would be better if jobs are created for the inmates instead?"

Solomon said he was likely to start Department of Labour mediation with his former employer, who would not return several calls from The Press.

One of the few non-inmate labourers left at the business believed he too would be sacked when his fixed-term contract ran out in about a month. He did not want to be named because he feared he could be fired earlier.

He said Solomon had been one of the most productive workers and had been achieving more than his target.

"We were doing really well with the workers we had. We needed a couple more people because we were getting so many orders."

Then the inmates were brought in, people started getting laid off, and the business's productivity plummeted, he said.

The company was now almost a month behind its work, he said.

"I'll back Hare up 100 per cent because what went on was wrong. I kept my job but he deserves to keep his too.

"We were a tight little family, we all got along and always had a laugh. And then they brought them [inmates] in and it went downhill and we lost people we shouldn't have lost."

Solomon said he had worked at Kiwi Pallets for almost a year without being offered a contract before management, in haste, told him he had to sign a four-month fixed-term and back-dated contract on the spot or he would not be kept or paid.

"It all seems a bit fishy to me . . . I was pushed to sign a contract immediately or else they would not pay me and I would not have been able to go to work on Monday."

Two weeks later he was given his marching orders.

Kerry Lambert, of Christchurch, was also laid off after just under a year's employment at the end of his contract and has been unable to get a new job.

The manager had handed out the redundancy letters to staff an hour before the end of day and Lambert was forced to train the inmates who were replacing him as well.

He thought inmates must have been brought in because they were cheaper, but he had been paid minimum wage, so he could not understand why he and his workmates had been fired.

The Department of Corrections would not confirm whether inmates were working at Kiwi Pallets due to prisoners' privacy, but The Press followed a van full of workers from the company premises to Rolleston Prison.

Due to the privacy issues, the department could not say whether it knew prisoners were replacing employees or comment on its procedures for preventing such events happening.

It did say the Release to Work scheme was successful in helping inmates reintegrate with society and that almost half kept their jobs once they had left prison.

Also, it stressed that Release to Work inmates were paid market rates and not subsidised in any way by the department.

"The Release to Work programme is an important reintegrative programme for offenders and Corrections values the employers who participate in the programme," a department statement said.

CASE COULD BE BROUGHT - SOLICITOR

On the face of Hare Solomon's allegations there appear to be "some issues" with the process his employer took, Duncan Cotterill senior solicitor Adam Gallagher says.

An employer could make employees redundant, but it had to be for a legitimate reason, the employment law specialist said.

"It looks like they possibly made him redundant, although it doesn't look like the positions have gone."

All employers needed to follow the proper process when making staff redundant, including giving reasons and consulting with the affected workers, he said.

"The potential issue's whether it was a fair redundancy because the work remains, it's just they've replaced them with other workers."

The allegation of pressuring workers to sign a contract threw up other issues, because employees had to be allowed the opportunity to seek independent advice before signing, he said.

It was for that reason that contracts should be signed before people started work, he said.

Even if an employee did not have a written contract, they would still be considered to have an employment agreement, even though it would be in breach of employment law, he said.

The nature of the default agreement would be from the conditions that had prevailed during employment.

So a person working regular 40-hour weeks would be considered to be in permanent fulltime employment.

Introducing a fixed-term contract to that situation after almost a year would probably be considered a change in conditions, which would need to be justified to the employee and consultation made, he said.

Solomon would have 90 days to bring a personal grievance against his former employer if he believed he was unfairly treated, Gallagher said.

- ? Fairfax NZ News

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/8376234/Labourers-lose-jobs-to-prisoners

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Obama nominates 3 to Cabinet-level posts

Walmart Foundation President Sylvia Mathews Burwell stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, as President Barack Obama announced he would nomination Burwell to head the Budget Office. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Walmart Foundation President Sylvia Mathews Burwell stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, as President Barack Obama announced he would nomination Burwell to head the Budget Office. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Gina McCarthy stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, as President Barack Obama announced he would nominate McCarthy to head the EPA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

MIT physics professor Ernest Moniz smiles as he stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, where President Barack Obama announces he would nominate Moniz for Energy Secretary . (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama speaks to members of the media at the start of a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013. With Obama, back row, from left are, Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Karen Mills, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the president, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Facing the president, from left are, Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama signaled his willingness to tackle climate change with his pick of Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, one of three major appointments he announced Monday.

A 25-year veteran of environmental policy and politics, McCarthy has worked for Republicans and Democrats, including Obama's presidential rival, Mitt Romney, who tapped her to help draft state plans for curbing the pollution linked to global warming. Along with McCarthy, Obama nominated MIT nuclear physicist Ernie Moniz to lead the Energy Department and Wal-Mart's Sylvia Mathews Burwell to head the budget office.

McCarthy, 58, a Boston native, has led the EPA's air pollution division since 2009, ushering in a host of new rules targeting air pollution from power plants, automobiles, and oil and gas production.

In nominating McCarthy as the nation's top environmental official, Obama is promoting a climate change champion at a time when he has renewed his commitment to address global warming and the agency is contemplating a host of new rules that could help achieve that. But McCarthy will have to balance the administration's ambitions with a dwindling budget: Congress has cut EPA's budget by 18 percent over the last two years, and the automatic budget cuts that went into effect Friday will hinder the agency's energy efficiency programs and climate research.

Moniz, as head of MIT's Energy Initiative, has worked on developing ways to produce power while curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

"They're going to be making sure we're investing in American energy, that we're doing everything we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we're going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity," Obama said.

McCarthy also brings a distinctive pronunciation of carbon dioxide, the chief pollutant blamed for climate change. McCarthy, in her thick accent, pronounces carbon as "cahbon."

"You wouldn't know by talking to her, but Gina's from Boston," Obama said. He then praised her for putting in place over the last four years what he said were "practical, cost-effective ways to keep our air clean and our economy growing."

Already, McCarthy has orchestrated many of the agency's most controversial new rules, such as placing the first-ever limits on greenhouse gases on newly built power plants and a long-overdue standard to control toxic mercury pollution from burning coal for electricity. On her plate, should she be confirmed by the Senate, will be even more rules ? from lowering sulfur emissions from gasoline to controlling global warming pollution from the older coal-fired power plants.

Like those regulations, her nomination is all but guaranteed to spark criticism from Republicans, who charge that the agency is killing jobs and undermining the coal industry. Environmentalists, meanwhile, will be looking to ensure that McCarthy issues the toughest rules possible, particularly when it comes to controlling emissions from the existing fleet of power plants.

Despite the partisanship in Washington, McCarthy has said the environment is a non-partisan issue, saying that the choice "doesn't have to be, 'Can I have a job or can I breathe clean air.'"

But she hasn't backed down when politicians have falsely portrayed her agency's work, such as suggesting EPA was poised to regulate cow flatulence to combat climate change and was looking to go after farmers for spilling milk.

"When I listen to their concerns, I am struck by the fact that what they think we are often doing bears little or no relationship to what we are actually doing," she said in testimony before Congress in April 2011.

Obama called her on Monday "a straight-shooter" who "welcomes different points of views."

Last year, the American Petroleum Institute praised an EPA rule for which she was responsible because it gave drillers two additional years to curb pollution from recently drilled oil and gas wells.

At the state level, McCarthy pressed for federal action to reduce greenhouse gases and was a key player in setting up the nation's first mandatory cap-and-trade system to reduce global warming pollution from power plants in 10 states. As head of Connecticut's environmental department, she is credited with convincing Republican Gov. Jodi Rell not to abolish a 10-state regional pact, even as other Republicans, including Romney, pulled out.

McCarthy was also Connecticut's point person on the environment when the state joined a lawsuit aimed at forcing the EPA to regulate global warming emissions from automobiles. When the Supreme Court ruled in April 2007 in the state's favor, McCarthy said "there's no downside." Many of the regulations she has helped shape at agency stemmed from that case.

But the state of Connecticut also sued the Bush administration for a limit on ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog, which McCarthy believed was too weak. That standard is still in place, thanks to a decision by Obama to stall the fast-tracking of a stricter smog limit that had been drafted by McCarthy's division at EPA.

Environmentalists praised the nomination on Monday, stressing her pragmatic approach to solving environmental problems and her ability to work with both parties.

Former Obama climate adviser and Clinton EPA administrator Carol Browner said in an interview that McCarthy has "a good understanding what the president needs to do, wants to do on climate change, which is to find the sweet spot for everyone, from the environmentalists to the states to companies."

But conservatives immediately stressed her role in what they view would as destructive policies from EPA.

"McCarthy will continue the regulatory attack on oil, coal and natural gas with the result that Americans will experience increasing energy costs and high unemployment rates," said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative think tank that receives some support from the fossil fuel industry.

Moniz, 68, was a former Energy Department undersecretary under Clinton. He's advised Obama on numerous energy topics, including how to handle the country's nuclear waste and the natural gas produced by the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing.

Environmental groups are wary of Moniz, because of his support of natural gas and nuclear power. His MIT Energy Initiative has received funding from oil companies such as BP, Shell and Chevron.

Burwell is Washington veteran, having served in several posts during the Clinton administration, including deputy OMB director. She currently heads the Wal-Mart Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the retail giant, and previously served as president of the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Julie Pace contributed to this report.

___

Follow Dina Cappiello's environment coverage on Twitter (at)dinacappiello

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-04-Obama-Cabinet/id-e132667879a443af848c5966b3a0d922

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